Burmese migrants struggle in Malaysia – IRINnews
October 14th, 2009
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=86574
PENANG, 14 October 2009 (IRIN) – In the tourist city of Penang in northern Malaysia, the Buddhist temple has become the locus of social and economic support for migrants from Myanmar.
“l was a contractor at home, but left Burma [Myanmar] 19 years ago, arriving in Malaysia after crossing from Thailand,” said Aung Tin, a foreman on the construction site of a new pagoda.
Burmese workers on the job at the new pagoda under construction at the Burmese Buddhist temple in Penang (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
Penang is one of Malaysia’s main economic and industrial centres, and the Burmese Buddhist temple provides social and religious support for the Burmese community.
At the construction site, all 14 staff supervised by Aung Tin – who would only talk to IRIN using a pseudonym – are Burmese migrants. (more…)
Burma’s precarious peace – RTÉ World Report
October 11th, 2009
http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/1011/worldreport.html
Presented by Colm Ó Mongáin
Saints and sinners
Brian O’Connell, London Editor, reports that Catholics turning out to to see St Thérèse de Lisieux have been on the receiving end of some surprising invective
Burma’s precarious peace
Simon Roughneen reports that the military junta in Burma is risking alienating its Chinese supporters. (more…)
Speaking up for migrant workers – The Irrawaddy
October 7th, 2009
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=16944
| By SIMON ROUGHNEEN |
At the global launch of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) 2009 Human Development Report in Bangkok on Monday, Thailand’s Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said the report’s findings provide “guidance for policymakers around the world.”
The UNDP report calls on countries to focus on the economic benefits that migration can bring to a host country and recommends that recipient countries allow more unskilled workers to move more freely, based on transparent procedures, with access to education and health services, and with reduced transaction costs.
Thailand hosts an estimated 2 to 3 million Burmese economic migrants. The push and pull factors determining Burmese migration to Thailand are stark. (more…)
New US policy has multiple goals – The Irrawaddy
October 5th, 2009
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=16934
NEWS ANALYSIS – By SIMON ROUGHNEEN
Mere days after the US announced it would alter its Burma policy, the Burmese courts refused to release Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest. While her appeal was never likely to succeed, the timing of the denial arrives as a clear signal that change will not come quickly in Burma.
Not that anyone was expecting it. Addressing a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Burma in Washington last week, Kurt Campbell, the assistant secretary of the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, acknowledged that “a long and difficult process” lay ahead. Tough US sanctions, Campbell said, will remain in place until the United States sees “concrete progress toward reform” in Burma, and he added that more sanctions could be imposed if changes are not forthcoming. (more…)
Burma Part 2: The John Yettaw incident – The Casual Truth
October 2nd, 2009
http://thecasualtruth.com/node/156
Click here for Part 1
It could not have been scripted better for the Burmese Generals.
Just two weeks prior to the release of iconic pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi after 14 years in detention, an
Cartoon parody of the Yettaw incident (The Irrawaddy)
unbelievable incident occurred that extended her house arrest to 2011 and beyond next year’s election.
On May 3, American tourist and Vietnam vet John Yettaw swam across the lake next to Suu Kyi’s house in Rangoon, the country’s capital.
He claimed to have information that an assassination plot was being hatched against her (apparently from a dream), and sought to warn her in advance.
According to Suu Kyi’s lawyer, he was asked to leave straight away but he refused. She decided to let him stay due to ill-health and after two days he swam back. He was arrested upon his return across the lake.
Suu Kyi was charged with violating the terms of her house arrest by ‘hosting’ an unpermitted ‘guest’.
Nobody explained how Yettaw managed to evade detection by the military guards around her house. Many suspect it wasn’t a coincidence that Suu Kyi’s house arrest was almost up when this incident took place.
The military government maintain a firm grip on the courts, and a show trial ran until August 11. The judge overlooked Yettaw’s gate-crashing antics, convicting and sentencing Suu Kyi to another 18 months, which crushed any last hope the suffering people of Burma had of a better life. (more…)
Burma Part 1: The worst government in the world? – The Casual Truth
October 1st, 2009
http://thecasualtruth.com/node/153
It’s been more than six decades since Burma (also known as Myanmar) won its independence from the British Empire.
Burma, a country of 50 million people in Southeast Asia, was then known as Asia’s rice-basket with its formidable food production potential exceeded only by the vast natural wealth in oil, gas, gems, timber and hydro-power.
Nowadays, these treasures lure foreign investors, who support the military dictatorship that rules the country.
Army rule was imposed in 1962. Since then, Burma’s Generals, known as the ‘junta’, have run the country as little more than a personal goldmine. (more…)
Sangha Leader Calls for United Opposition – The Irrawaddy
September 22nd, 2009
http://www.irrawaddy.org/highlight.php?art_id=16838
BANGKOK/PENANG — Two years ago, the sight of thousands of saffron-clad monks marching in silence, hands clasped and heads bowed, briefly sparked hopes that some loosening of military control in Burma might be in sight.
Would the junta dare harm the revered monks and pink-robed nuns who took to the streets to bolster protests that begun as a response to an arbitrary fuel price hike in August 2007.
Burmese Buddhist temple in Penang, Malaysia (Photo - Simon Roughneen)
Some observers thought, for the few short days between the start of the monk demonstrations and the army crackdown that the army would not dare touch the monks. However, the Saffron Revolution was crushed when the army moved in under the order of the ruling generals.
In hindsight, given that monks in Mandalay were beaten up, imprisoned and shot in 1990, when they marked another two year anniversary—commemorating the 1988 student demonstrations when the army killed around 3000 Burmese—such optimism was unfounded. (more…)
Democracy in Burma being ‘damaged’ by US – Sunday Business Post
September 20th, 2009
http://www.sbpost.ie/news/world/democracy-in-burma-being-damaged-by-us-44452.html
By Simon Roughneen in Penang
Senior members of Burma’s National league for Democracy (NLD) – the party led by Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and which won the country’s last election in 1990 – have criticised US initiatives in Burma.
Following a visit to Burma (now known as Myanmar) last month, US Democrat Senator Jim Webb said it was his ‘‘impression’’ that Suu Kyi was open to new ideas about sanctions – a suggestion which her lawyer disputed. U Win Tin, a senior NLD figure who spent more than 20 years in jail in Burma, wrote in the Washington Post that Webb’s visit and subsequent pronouncements were ‘‘damaging to our democracy movement’’. (more…)
Japan’s Burma Policy: Changes to Come? – The Irrawaddy
September 16th, 2009
http://irrawaddy.org/highlight.php?art_id=16794&Submit=Submit
| NEWS ANALYSIS - SIMON ROUGHNEEN |
Japan's PM Taro Aso leaves his final news conference on Sept 16 (Reuters)
The Democratic Party of Japan’s (DPJ) landmark win in the recent Japanese election has prompted much speculation about the incoming administration’s foreign policy.
China’s rise, US economic difficulties, North Korea’s unpredictable bellicosity and Asia’s growing share of global GDP means that Tokyo has to deal with many challenges and opportunities.
Japan’s economy has stagnated since 1990, about the same time that Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy (NLD) won the last election held in Burma.
Japan’s economy contracted 15.2 percent in the first quarter of 2009—the fastest pace since records began in 1955 and the fourth straight quarter of negative growth. Exports plunged 26 percent in that quarter, the steepest decline on record. The latest numbers show the vulnerability of a country reliant on international trade to fuel growth, with the Chinese market central to this strategy.
While Asia’s importance in Tokyo’s political and economic considerations will increase, Japan remains dependent on the US for security and to a large extent it will follow US foreign policy trends.
That said, the DPJ has already indicated that it could alter Japan’s dependent defense relationship with the US. However, it remains unclear how it would achieve this without compromising Japanese security, as the party seems unlikely to add any bite to Japan’s official pacifism. (more…)
Clouds of War over Burma – ISN
September 11th, 2009
The ruling junta may provoke renewed conflict with ethnic minorities ahead of 2010 elections as it seeks to impose its will on autonomous borderlands, Simon Roughneen writes for ISN Security Watch.
Recent fighting in northern Burma sent over 35,000 refugees into China, prompting fears that the ruling junta is seeking a
Protestors in London, 2007 (cc) Orhan Tsolak/flickr
military solution to its recent demand that 17 ethnic militias based in Burma’s borderlands merge with the state security forces before 2010 elections.
Over the weekend of 28 August, the junta’s army overran territory previously controlled by one of the militias, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, comprised of Kokang-Chinese who have been in the region for decades. The group – like many of the other militias in the borderlands – is thought to be involved in the ‘Golden Triangle’ drug trade.
The fighting came just days after US Senator Jim Webb’s visit to Burma, where he met the junta’s leader, General Than Shwe, and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Despite US and international condemnation of sentencing of Aung San Suu Kyi to another 18 months house arrest on 11 August, Webb got little by way of concessions from the junta. He secured the release of John Yettaw, the apparent guilty party in the case that saw Suu Kyi found guilty of violating her original house arrest terms. However, as things stand, the junta will proceed with elections scheduled for 2010, without Suu Kyi, without her National League for Democracy (NLD) and without the 2,100 political prisoners currently in jail in Burma.
Webb since penned an op-ed in the New York Times, pushing his view that the US should engage with the junta, which in turn has drawn scorn from Burmese exiles, who cite remarks by Suu Kyi’s lawyer countering Webb’s statement that she would consider supporting reduced sanctions on the junta. (more…)
